Wide Angle

Whether you want to get smart or sound cool, here’s what ten commonly used social media buzzwords mean in layman’s terms.  What other jargon is your digital agency (or, more likely, your 14 year-old) throwing your way?

1.  Social Graph: A visual representation of the different connections that an individual has within a larger social network.    Click here to learn more.

2. Social CRM: A process to monitor, engage and manage conversations and relationships with existing and prospective customers and influencers across the internet, social networks, and digital channels.  Click here to learn more.

3. Geo targeting: In geomarketing and internet marketing, the method of determining the physical location of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location.   Click here to learn more. Read More »

Launching a new product and want customer advocates to help spread the word for you?  See what you can learn from National Instruments’ LabView product launch (a software program for engineers).  The launch campaign, which won MLC’s 2009 B2B Marcomm Awards, generated more than 2,000 customer tweets and 80 customer blog posts in just one month.

What was their secret?  Building platforms and content around customer needs – not their own product launch.  Read More »

Let’s face it: some brands have it easier than others when it comes to social media.

But while the Harley Davidsons and Coca-Colas of the world have a leg up, companies in “unsocial” industries (pharma, financial services, manufacturing, I’m talking to you) can still take advantage of the opportunity that social media offers.

Matthew Lehman, the Web Experience Director at Progressive Insurance, has some great suggestions for how companies in “unsocial” (and yes, sometimes downright unpopular) industries can use social media to boost customer satisfaction. Read More »

We thought we’d use our budding blog and social channels to identify candidates for this new spot on the MLC team—Social/Digital Media Analyst.  At the same time, it’s a great opportunity to share our thinking on this with the broader membership, as we’re striving to implement our own advice here.

Why are we looking for an “analyst” profile? We’re big believers in social media as a powerful listening tool.  So, we’d like the kind of analyst skillset that can make sense of structured and unstructured information.  That means blending traditional, deductive web analytics with the more inductive comment surfing and pattern finding characteristic of social media.  In a phrase, we’re looking for someone with “creative analytics”.

Why not just “Social Media Analyst”? We’re putting into practice the Return-on-Objectives approach to measuring social media, as detailed in this blog post by Doug Hutton.  Digital is critical here, because website engagement is the intermediate objective that will bridge us from social media activity to financial outcomes.

The Social/Digital Media analyst’s primary objective will be to drive member web engagement, which involves building and integrating a powerful social experience for members with the member web experience.  We believe clarity on this objective will help the Social/Digital Analyst make smart decisions about where to focus energy in a social world that offers thousands of ways to spend (and burn) time.

So, if you know of someone who might fit the bill, check out the Social/Digital Media Analyst job description on CEB’s jobs page. Search keyword “digital social”.  Or, pass it along via Twitter, LinkedIn or your social platform of choice.

Tired of playing 20 questions with your legal team?  Let Lizzie help.

As Digital Web Lead at Allstate Insurance, Lizzie Schreier has faced her share of legal battles.  After jumping through hoops to persuade Allstate’s legal team to embrace (or at least accept) social media, she’s ready to share her key lessons learned. 

Here’s her advice on how you can make the marketing / legal partnership a little less painful: Read More »

The post title is cheeky, yes; but this one incredibly true. The more we see members implementing a social media strategy, the wider the gap grows between success and failure – and along with that, the attendant risks of failure. For those looking simply to make the social media case, failure means another year lost while consumers and technology forge ahead. For those making social media a central part of the customer experience, failure means massive personnel costs that could have been spent on tried-and-true techniques. So without further ado, the top ten list: Read More »

Plenty of Council members are asking us questions about social media ROI.  As our research team scans all that’s been written on the topic, we occasionally come across little gems.  One that may have escaped your attention is a section of a larger 2007 study, Never Ending Friending, which may provide some valuable rules of thumb and benchmarks for those of you diving into social media ROI.

The study was commissioned by MySpace which, at the time, was on the top of the social networking heap.  You’ll likely want to skip the first 34 pages (unless you have a keen interest in MySpace circa 2007), and get right to the meat.  Read More »

We recently hosted a conference call that gathered progressive marketers from highly regulated industries (like pharma, financial services, and healthcare) to discuss how companies facing strict legal constraints could make the most of social media.  Here’s what they suggest: Read More »

Advance warning: this post will likely open more doors than it closes. But they are important doors that need opening, especially if they aren’t already. Haniel Lynn pushed the first one open with his earlier post, asking if Marketing could foment a corporate cultural revolution through social media. Member conversations I’ve had over the past week have demonstrated there is a root-cause question that must come first – where does Marketing fit in the organization? Better yet, where should it? Read More »

You’ll find an extended report on social networking in this week’s Economist.  You may have seen it on the newsstand—it shows Steve Jobs, in Biblical raiment with nimbus, bearing the fabled tablet. 

Clever.  And glorious.  Or blasphemous, depending on your point of view. 

If you’re well-versed in social media, you won’t find the report mind-blowing, though it is characteristically well-reasoned.  If you’re newer to social media, I’d recommend it. Read More »